ArchiTreasures: Louis Sullivan in Cedar Rapids

Louis Henry Sullivan, (born 1856, Boston; died 1924, Chicago) was an American architect, regarded as the spiritual father of modern American architecture and identified with the aesthetics of early skyscraper design.
Sullivan was a spokesman for the reform of architecture, an opponent of historical eclecticism, and did much to remake the image of the architect as creative personality. His designs are characterized by richness of ornament and his importance lies in his writings as well as in his architectural achievements. The young Frank Lloyd Wright spent six years as apprentice to Sullivan, and The Master is acknowledged as having had a large influence on Wright’s work.
Sullivan attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the École
des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His career reached its zenith during his partnership with architect Dankman Adler. Most of their buildings were in Chicago, where the commercial expansion of the 1880s resulted in many commissions.
In 1895, after Adler left the firm for another position, proud Sullivan refused to take him back, and began to practice by himself. However, his temperament was unsuited to handling all of the phases of architectural practice. He was difficult to work with and by 1909, a lack of commissions reduced him to desperate straits; he was forced to sell his library and household effects.
Particularly noteworthy projects undertaken in his last years were seven banks in a number of small Midwestern towns, including the National Farmers’ (now Security) Bank in Owatonna, Minnesota, and the much beloved "Jewel Box," the Merchants’ National Bank in Grinnell, Iowa (1914), currently home to the Grinnell Area Chamber of Commerce and visitors center.
During this same period, he designed three buildings in Cedar Rapids, two of which are still standing: Saint Paul’s United Methodist Church (1910-1914) and The People’s Savings Bank (1909-1911). Unfortunately, both of these projects were scaled back to a huge extent due to budget restrictions, and proved to be something of a disappointment for both the architect and his clients.
They are both well-worth seeing, and Iowa Architectural Foundation hopes you will enjoy a glimpse provided by our ArchiTreasures tour, led by historian Mark Stoffer Hunter. Iowa is proud to have these buildings as landmarks around which to tell Sullivan’s story.